Spookily-Adorable Halloween Decorations With Your Little Ghoul or Boy

  
I know, I know, Halloween's over and trust me, we're all about gearing up for Thanksgiving around our house these days, but because I was immersed in the 31 days of Great Children's Music all throughout the month of October, I missed out on the chance to share what we've been up to lately.

I figured I'd go ahead and show you these ideas now and then you can just pin them for next year.

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet

I came across the inspiration for these ideas while searching for painted footprint crafts.  However, after last year's Christmas-gifts-to-family experience (footprint reindeer), I knew I didn't want to deal with having paint everywhere, just for the sake of a couple cute Halloween decorations.

So I decided to go the tracing route, and I'm so happy I did!

Friendly Phantasmic Feet

For these friendly little ghosts, I had Gv stand on a piece of white paper (I even used the blank side of already-used paper from our "scrap" pile, to save trees) while I traced around her feet with a pencil.

That in itself was an experience, since Gv giggled and wiggled as the pencil tickled her tootsies.  Although she moved around quite a bit, I wasn't worried about the outlines being perfect, because I knew I'd be tracing over them with thick black marker and could easily "fix" any wiggles that showed up on the paper.

The next step was to do just that.  I traced over the pencil marks with the marker and then drew in ghost eyes and mouths.

After that, it was time for the artist to go to work and add her own personal flair to the project:

Already contemplating her next masterpiece

I definitely recommend not cutting out the shapes until after your child has decorated them, even if he or she is older.  That was one of the main rules in my classroom, to always color before you cut!  It's just so much easier that way.

Now you just cut out all of the ghost shapes:

I know you won't believe this, but I did NOT make her color these in rainbow-order.  She did that completely on her own - she is SO my child!

You could hang these up in lots of different ways (from a string or dental floss, tape them to a window, or just stick them on the fridge), but I had these dollar store hangers that I'd used for word family displays in my classroom just sitting around, so I decided to hang them off of those with plain old clear tape.

We made these six for our house (yes, the larger feet are mine - I let Gv help trace my feet for those, which produced even more giggles) and then made a set for G to hang in his classroom as well as another set for the twins I tutor.  

We hung ours on the mantle and Gv enjoyed the little game G taught her of walking up to them on tiptoe and blowing them to make them move.

If you're doing this with a child who's a bit older, then they could obviously be more involved in this project (tracing, drawing, cutting), but I was really happy with how engaged Gv was in the activity, even at her age (about a year and a half old).  We spent a couple of hours doing this.

Between the ticklish tootsie tracing, the coloring, and the putting-on-and-taking-off of the marker caps, there was lots to keep even a young toddler occupied.

Frankenfeet

We had so much fun with that project, I decided to try out another one later on in the week.  This time, I decided to use construction paper:

I traced Gv's foot on green paper, cut it out and glue-sticked it (oh yes, glue-sticked is a verb) to a piece of brown paper, then used black marker to add the eyes, mouth, bolts and hair (over her toes).  I was planning to let her decorate this one, too, but she went down for her nap and so I just decided to let it be done as it was.  She still enjoyed the foot-tickle experience of the tracing and if we do this again when she's older, she'll be able to draw the features on herself.

I hung this one in the sidelight window next to our front door and gave the other one to Grammy and Grandpa to display.

Spider Hands

The same day we made the Frankenfeet, I decided to try tracing her hands.  This was a totally different experience (although still one full of giggles) because Gv tended to wiggle her fingers even more than her toes while I traced them.

I originally had planned on making lots and lots of these and putting them all over our front door (or hanging them in our entryway), but I could tell she was ready for her nap, so I just stopped at the one spider and put it in the window with the Frankenfoot.

I traced both her hands on black construction paper, cut them out and glued them onto a piece of orange paper, then used a white crayon to add eyes and a mouth:

 If I had made another of these, I wouldn't have added the mouth.  I also lightly outlined the body, which looks pretty goofy, so I wouldn't do that again, either.  I was also waffling between which way to position the thumbs - at the top, or bottom - which do you think would look best?

Two points if you just tilted your head over to see about the answer to my question. 

So there you have it.  Three really easy Halloween decorations to make with your little ghoul or boy.  We'll definitely be repeating them next year around the Healy House and I'll be brainstorming other designs to create and add to the collection.

Do you have any ideas for other characters we could make in this way?  What do you think about the spider hands?  Thumbs up or down?  I'd love to hear!  Either leave a comment below or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.

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